Uncle Wiggily and Baby Bunty

“Good-by, Uncle Wiggily! Good-by!” called Baby Bunty to Mr. Longears, the rabbit gentleman, one morning, as he stood on the front porch of his hollow stump bungalow.

“What’s that? ‘Good-by?’ Why, you aren’t going to leave me; are you?” cried Uncle Wiggily. “Are you going to leave me after I found you in the woods, and took care of you and—and all that!”

“Oh, but you say I make you chase me and play tag, and that I won’t let you sit around and get stiff and old and all the like of that! I’d better go away,” and really it looked as though Baby Bunty were going away, for she had a little bundle in one paw.

“Oh, don’t go away!” begged Uncle Wiggily. “I don’t mind chasing you, and I was only fooling about you making me get old and stiff.”

“And I was only fooling about going away!” laughed Baby Bunty. “I’m only going to take my painting lesson from Mother Nature. She knows how to color the flowers red, blue and golden, and she is giving me painting lessons. My paints are in this bundle. When I finish learning how to make a blue sky turn pink I’ll come back to you.”

“Please do!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “I shall miss you.”

“Then, in an hour or so, if you walk through the woods you may meet me coming home from my painting lesson,” spoke Bunty.

“I will!” promised Uncle Wiggily. Then Baby Bunty hopped on with her box of colors, and Mr. Longears went to see Grandfather Goosey Gander.

“What do you s’pose Baby Bunty can paint?” asked Grandpa Goosey, when Uncle Wiggily had told about the little rabbit girl learning how to make a green leaf look red.

“I don’t know what she can paint, but she is a smart little thing,” said Mr. Longears. “It would be hard to find her equal if you hopped or waddled for one whole day and part of another.”

“I believe you!” quacked Grandpa Goosey Gander.

Pretty soon it was time for Uncle Wiggily to start hopping along the woodland path to meet Baby Bunty, for soon she would be leaving Mother Nature’s studio, where the little rabbit girl took her lessons.

“I must get Baby Bunty to give my red, white and blue striped barber pole rheumatism crutch a new coat of paint,” thought Uncle Wiggily, as he hopped along. “And I wonder just where I shall meet her!”

All of a sudden he heard a joyful sound.

“Hi, there, Uncle Wiggily! Here I am! Whoop-de-doodle-woodle!” and along hopped Baby Bunty. There was a smudge of red paint on one ear, a dab of blue paint on her left paw and a dribble of yellow paint on her hair ribbon.

“I’ve been having my painting lessons,” she said to Uncle Wiggily.

“I see you have!” he agreed, with a laugh. “Well, we’ll hop home now, and see what Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy has for supper.”

Uncle Wiggily and Baby Bunty were hopping along, when, all of a sudden, out from under a pile of dried grass jumped the bad old Magoosielum. The Magoosielum is worse than either the Pipsisewah or the Skuddlemagoon.

“Ah, ah! I’m in luck today!” cried the Magoosielum. “A rabbit gentleman and a rabbit girl! Let me see, whose souse shall I eat first? I guess I’ll take yours, Uncle Wiggily.”

With that the Magoosielum let go of Baby Bunty, well knowing she would not run away without Uncle Wiggily. Then the Magoosielum began looking at the rabbit gentleman’s ears to see where the best place would be to begin eating souse. For that is what souse is—pickled ears of nice rabbits.

“Well, I’ll take some left ear souse first,” said the Magoosielum, and he was just starting to do this, and Uncle Wiggily didn’t know what to do. The rabbit gentleman saw Baby Bunty open her paint box.

“That will not help any,” sadly thought Uncle Wiggily. “The only thing that will drive away a Magoosielum is pineapple cheese, and Baby Bunty has none of that.”

Then the bad animal stood in front of Uncle Wiggily picking out a good place to begin nibbling the souse, so Mr. Longears couldn’t see what Bunty was doing with the paint box. All he could see was that she was near a funny, old, gnarled and fire-blackened stump.

But, all of a sudden, Baby Bunty cried:

“Look out now, you bad old Magoosielum. Look out, or my friend, the Snippy-Snappy, will get you!”

And, as true as I’m telling you, there stood what seemed to be a little, short, squatty animal, with a big red mouth, a green nose, one yellow eye and one pink eye, one brown cheek and one purple one, and his teeth. Oh, his teeth were all sorts of colors, some even being Skilligimink shade!

“Oh, wow! Oh, this is terrible!” howled the bad Magoosielum. “Don’t let that Snippy-Snappy get me! I won’t hurt you, Uncle Wiggily!” And away ran the bad chap, not hurting Mr. Longears nor Bunty at all.

“But won’t the Snippy-Snappy get my souse?” asked Mr. Longears, when he saw that the unpleasant creature was gone. “Aren’t we in danger from the Snippy-Snappy?”

“Of course not!” laughed Bunty. “I just made the Snippy-Snappy on the outside of the funny old stump, with my colored paints. I painted the Snippy-Snappy, Uncle Wiggily, to scare the Magoosielum.”

“And right well you scared him,” spoke the bunny. “You surely are learning to paint, Bunty.” And if the safety pin doesn’t slide off the cushion and try to sprinkle soapsuds in the eye of the needle, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the queer log.